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Norway Powers Ahead (Electrically): Over Half New Car Sales Now Electric or Hybrid (reuters.com)
Sales of electric and hybrid cars rose above half of new registrations in Norway in 2017, a record aided by generous subsidies that extended the country's lead in shifting from fossil-fuel engines, data showed on Wednesday. From a report: Pure electric cars and hybrids, which have both battery power and a diesel or petrol motor, accounted for 52 percent of all new car sales last year in Norway against 40 percent in 2016, the independent Norwegian Road Federation (OFV) said. "No one else is close" in terms of a national share of electric cars, OFV chief Oeyvind Solberg Thorsen said. "For the first time we have a fossil-fuel market share below 50 percent." Norway exempts new electric cars from almost all taxes and grants perks that can be worth thousands of dollars a year in terms of free or subsidized parking, re-charging and use of toll roads, ferries and tunnels.
When your economy is based on extraction of fossil fuels, it's easy to put out public stories about your progressive energy policies and socialist government and laugh all the way to the bank as the checks from the oil wells are deposited.
Norway exempts new electric cars from almost all taxes and grants perks that can be worth thousands of dollars a year in terms of free or subsidized parking, re-charging and use of toll roads, ferries and tunnels.
Well, OK ... if you basically paid me to own one, I'd probably have one too.
"Norway exempts new electric cars from almost all taxes and grants perks that can be worth thousands of dollars a year in terms of free or subsidized parking, re-charging and use of toll roads, ferries and tunnels."
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
Since hybrid cars still use fossil fuels, they should start subsidizing electric cars to eliminate hybrids.
No no no!
Norway only extracted the oil!
It's not their fault that others burned it!
Add to that, like a lot of other countries, they externalize their military costs to other countries (i.e USA). What would Norway's social spending be like if they had to also spend money to ensure a proper defense against say Russia?
Indeed. Oil producers aren't producing oil because they think it's fun. They do so because people want to buy it.
If you want to cut oil consumption, you have to attack demand, not production. Stop production in one place, it just moves elsewhere.
The chloride owes the sodium money.
My understanding is that Norway has a 25% tax on new petrol cars. Also taxes on petrol are quite high. I'm pretty green but, at this point, I'm not sure tax incentives to promote hybrids / BEVs make sense. The reality is that a high-end pure electric vehicle is way more fun to drive than one powered by gasoline. A 4 cylinder supercharged engine combined with an electric motor is a much *better* vehicle than a V8. But both are (tens of) thousands of dollars more expensive than a basic gasoline counterpart. It's not clear that the current incentives will lead to the price gap closing. Without that, we'll have to provide the incentives forever or hybrids / BEVs just won't sell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
We'll make great pets
Norway has a lot of money due to exporting fossil fuels like oil and natural gas. Good job Norway: you are causing global warming.
They are alleviating that by going all in on electric, Are you suggesting they should not?
is around 70k. This isn't surprising. They've got the money to afford it. Meanwhile in the States the average age of a car is over 10 years
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
so, electric not competitive
have to steal from working people with less income to afford one
nice
Developing WMD's isn't all that expensive.
would be the most effective way for Europe to contain Russia which has shown that it is a danger to Europe.
...that Norway is NOT ONLY a fabulously wealthy petro-state, but far more prudent about what they do with the funds than other oil-rich countries.
Using them as an example of anything in terms of social policies is hardly exportable to most other country's circumstances.
-Styopa
That's debatable since there's about thirty tonnes of lithium per capita on this whole planet. Also, wasting half of your generated energy on the hydrogen cycle doesn't seem wise either.
Ezekiel 23:20
At least they recognize the problem and are trying to do something unlike the US where the Koch brothers run government is subsidizing fossil fools.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Same with me in Illinois with a C-Max energi. Normal electric range is 20-24 miles when warm. Car this morning reported a 15 mile range. Even on gas it is low as normal highway mpg is around 45. Wife drove 100 miles the other day and only got 35. Brutal cold is hard on mileage
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
Norway does not need a proper defense against, lets say the Russians.
1)
There is Sweden and Finland between Norway and Russia.
2)
If the US had not made "communism" and "Russia" the number one bad guy on the planet, why would need anyone a defense against them?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
More like 30,000 tons or 30 million tons. ;D
Or are you thinking about the amount you could mine, then you might be right
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
With Norway going electric, there will be increased demand for batteries that work well in cold weather. Remember that the northern part of Norway is north of the Arctic Circle.
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
I thought the sea contents of lithium was around 2.3e11 kg, which would make it roughly 3e4 kg per living individual.
Ezekiel 23:20
"Norway exempts new electric cars from almost all taxes and grants perks that can be worth thousands of dollars a year in terms of free or subsidized parking, re-charging and use of toll roads, ferries and tunnels."
EV and hybrid cars must be pretty unpopular if they need so many incentives to induce sales.
That would be true if the share of the cost and the amount of military resources provided were equal. Which is not the case.
The US pays the largest part of the NATO budget (source: CNSNEWS) and supplies the largest amount of troops, tanks, planes, etc. (source: wikipedia).
So yes Norway's defense is basically externalized.
If the US had not made "communism" and "Russia" the number one bad guy on the planet, why would need anyone a defense against them?
Ask Ukraine.
The cold and snow in the area. I grew up on a farm 10 miles from town in northern Wisconsin. Winter was tough at times. And cold does affect battery life and batteries in general. ;)
;)
It is one thing to use an electric car in southern California. Use one 10 miles from town, in 6 inches of snow in near/sub zero temps, spinning out, etc.
Also, if I need to pay 60k+, I will lean toward a Large, Gas Powered, 4 wheel drive, SUV.
But then, I am older and could be set in my ways and maybe don't see the light
Just my 2 cents
"There's not enough Lithium for the world to transition to all electric vehicles."
That's because all those bipolar people are _eating_ it.
We need the Lithium for batteries with 2 poles, not people with 2.
In other words, if you want a conventional car/truck you go to Germany and bring it back as a used vehicle instead of buying a new one in Norway.
And in that defense alliance, as the absolute numbers show, Norway contributions are low.. absolute troops (17th), supplies, and money.
So if the US said to NATO, or a specific country, we will no longer offer our money/troops in your defense how would that countries spending have to change to ensure it it had the right size military to defend itself? The military spending would have to increase and therefore either the taxes of that country will go up even more or a lot of the social services would have to shrink.
So again Norway benefits greatly in this alliance that it doesn't contribute much too. Essentially externalizing its defense.
As for the US and all its 800 bases, wars, etc. You won't hear any argument from me.
> If the US had not made "communism" and "Russia" the number one bad guy on the planet, why would need anyone a defense against them?
The US didn't do that. The Commintern did.
Also, it was Kruschev that started the cold war with Trump style blustering nonsense.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
What are they trying to do? Buying Teslas with their oil money??? What a joke.
They should stop producing oil and natural gas first. Buying a Tesla with money you made selling oil does nothing for the globe.
That greenwash wasn't peer reviewed either. Tesla's batteries are currently built with marginal electricity, so they must be made from deployable power, which is fossil fuel or nukes.
Note that statement, which refers to new cars SALES. It does NOT refer to the total number of vehicles on the road.
Hell, the USA could brag that EV sales are up 86% over last year's numbers (ok, the year before last, since we don't have numbers for '18 yet). That's even better than Norway's growth rate (40% last year, 52% this year is only a 30% growth rate). Neither number (Norway's or our's) means a hill of beans without some indication of total fraction on the road....
I don't know about Norway, but over here, most cars last ten+ years. So 52% of new cars would represent maybe 5% of all cars on the road. But saying that 5% of your cars are electric (or hybrid - wonder what fraction of the 52% is hybrid) doesn't sound nearly so impressive....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Not many EVs up north though. Distances are too long. Most EVs in norway are clustered ariound the bigger cities both because driving distances are less and because they are excempt from road tolls which are common in the urban centres. The temperatures in these areas are more modereate, though there is little evidence that EVs suffer hugely in the cold. 20-30% reduced range seem to be the norm, but keep in mind that snowy roads and winter tires also degrade range so it is not just about the cold. Also the effect is less on longer drives as the battery comes up to working temperature.
(Eh, should have been 2.3e14 kg, of course, or 2.3e11 tonnes.)
Ezekiel 23:20
I don't care about the "free market" or "net energy exporter" arguments, the important thing is that Norway has contributed substantially to electric car sales... This in turn will help accelerate technological improvements and drive cost down through mass production. That is the key catalyst that is needed to make turn a "viable technology" into a widely available and affordable technology.
Buying Teslas (and Leaf's Prius's, etc.) with oil money. Great idea!
The oil money won't last.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
1) Norway shares borders with Russia. Sweden does not.
2) Ask any eastern european about Russia and communism. They were occupied by Russia for almost half a decade.
Well you're never going to get to a significant fraction of the cars on the road being EV without a significant fraction of sales being EV. Usable EVs have only been around for a couple of years. Even if 100% of sales had been EV from the day they were released, it would be a while before they represented the majority of cars on the road.
But what this news does suggest is that we're starting to enter the era of runaway EV adoption, and I imagine my 2-year-old daughter will never drive an ICE (if she even drives a car at all).
There is also some speculation that--despite the usual "lifespan" of an ICE car--the transition could actually happen much faster than most people expect. That's because once a critical mass of cars are EV, you lose the infrastructure (gas stations, engine shops) that support ICE cars, driving ever more rapid adoption of EVs. It happened with the conversion of cameras from film to digital. People who bought expensive film cameras and planned to keep them for a decade or more quickly changed their tune once the critical mass of digital was reached and all the film developers started shutting down.
They should stop producing oil and natural gas first. Buying a Tesla with money you made selling oil does nothing for the globe.
And hand over the business to petrostates who won't buy a Tesla with their profits? The demand for oil and gas is currently there; it doesn't go away just because you stop selling. Might as well fill that demand and use roll the money back into reducing future demand.
> Makes sense to tax fossil fuel cars and subsidize EVs.
Not when you need to
1) run a fossil-fueled electric generator
2) put up with line losses getting the electricity to charging sites (or home garages)
3) put up with the inevitable conversion losses during battery-charging (2nd law of thermodynamics)
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
This is Slashdot. Any discussion of electric cars is required to include these obligatory posts -
"My daily commute is 252 miles. Therefore, electric cars are useless to anyone and everyone."
(Variation also acceptable: "Twice a year I drive 600 miles to Phoenix. Therefore, electric cars are useless to anyone and everyone.")
"My electric power comes from coal, therefore all electric cars are more polluting than my Grandpa's 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass."
"Widespread adoption of electric vehicles will destabilize the grid and require us to build over 9000 coal-power stations"
"EVs will never be economical when the battery only lasts a couple of years and costs $9,999.95 to replace."
Just about every drop of oil that Norway sells ends up in the atmosphere - a large proportion of it as CO2. If Norway doesn't sell their oil, it doesn't contribute to the CO2 issue.
In general (and anyone who took Engineering Physics could tell you this), colder temperatures increase the efficiency of battery usage.
Where you may be confused is that people in cold climates tend to use windshield wipers and heaters more frequently. Fossil fuel engines use the waste heat from the car engine to provide this, so it doesn't "cost" any more energy, but battery (EV) cars have to use electricity to provide the heaters and run the wipers. In addition, cold climates tend to correlate to longer periods of darkness, so the electric lights are run more, and sometimes used both internally (to see) and externally (to illuminate) when not in motion.
So, technically, you are not correct that EV are less efficient in the cold. They just are less efficient at wasting most of the energy from their fuel source on heating air.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Just about every drop of oil that Norway sells ends up in the atmosphere - a large proportion of it as CO2. If Norway doesn't sell their oil, it doesn't contribute to the CO2 issue.
That's an incredibly simplistic way to look at a fungible commodity. All it would really do it shift where the oil is currently coming from and likely increase some really marginal types of oil production which would likely increase total CO2 output. Econ is dismal and boring but it does often keep one from making the problems worse which is likely what your suggestion would do.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
Not many EVs up north though. Distances are too long. Most EVs in norway are clustered ariound the bigger cities both because driving distances are less and because they are excempt from road tolls which are common in the urban centres. The temperatures in these areas are more modereate, though there is little evidence that EVs suffer hugely in the cold. 20-30% reduced range seem to be the norm, but keep in mind that snowy roads and winter tires also degrade range so it is not just about the cold. Also the effect is less on longer drives as the battery comes up to working temperature.
Most EVs keep their batteries warm all the time to prevent degradation. Its actually quite effective as I've owned 2 EVs and neither have noticeably lost range in the 5 years I've owned the older one. The problem is that this slowly drains power from the battery and in cold weather the drain is magnified. I love EVs but I'm not sure owning them north of the arctic circle is really necessary or that practical both because there are so few people up there and the engineering issues with battery life.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
They should stop producing oil and natural gas first. Buying a Tesla with money you made selling oil does nothing for the globe.
I don't agree. In a perfect rational world oil & coal energy should be heavily taxed by global carbon tax for example. Then let the shift to greener & more efficient use of energy be solved by the heavy market forces stemming from that.
But that kind of global cooperation to solve these issues seems hard to do right now. Hence it is more efficient to pump that dirty money into clean energy tech to quicken its takeover.
Just about every drop of oil that Norway sells ends up in the atmosphere - a large proportion of it as CO2.
Agreed.
If Norway doesn't sell their oil, it doesn't contribute to the CO2 issue.
I guess technically that specific oil doesn't get burned, but that doesn't mean the CO2 issue is helped. The would-be buyer of that oil doesn't just say, "oh, you want to keep it in the ground? Guess I don't need oil at all." No, they just turn and get that oil from the tar sands or some other source.
Rofl ... slective truth in history classes?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The allied forces divied up the world. Then the western part decided communism is bad and staged a slow war in south america and asia.
The world has not recovered from that after 60 years, and Russia after glasnost and perestroyka is niw stronger than ever, with the USA on a steep decline.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
However most Li is in the earth crust.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Don't mean to take away credit where it is due, but while on this, how many cars in Norway? Per carsalesbase.com, in 2016, it was 154.603 (yes, that is a decimal, but not meant to be a decimal :). As a comparison, Ford in the US sold 165,301(yes, that is a comma, meant to be a comma).. I guess it is pretty easy for a small country (population) like Norway to put in measures like this - somewhere it also helps that in a few years, Norwegians won't need to work at all, considering income from their reserves which are a mountain pile (err... where did that come from?).